Michael Davis directory profile photo

Michael Davis

Viola

Violist Michael Davis has built a versatile career excelling as both a chamber musician and orchestral player. Michael has been a member of the New York City Ballet Orchestra and the Princeton Symphony Orchestra, and performs regularly with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra, and the Philadelphia Chamber Orchestra. He has appeared in diverse settings including Carnegie Hall, Alice Tully Hall, Merkin Hall, Lincoln Center, Radio City Music Hall with Hans Zimmer, Madison Square Garden with The Who, at the Jazz Gallery with the Pedro Giraudo Tango Septet, in the Broadway production of the French musical Notre Dame de Paris, and at prestigious chamber music series including Gather NYC, Trinity Wall Street Concerts at 1, Music for Montauk, Schneider Concerts, and others.

Internationally he has performed throughout Korea as a member of the New York in Chuncheon Festival since 2013 and has given the Korean premieres of important works by John Adams, Andrew Norman, Nathan Schram, and Caroline Shaw. In recognition of this Michael was named an Honorary Cultural Ambassador by Woljeongsa Temple. Michael has also taught and performed as a faculty member of the Alfredo Saint Malo Festival in Panama, and with the National Symphony of the Dominican Republic.

As a member of the new music ensemble NOVUS NYC Michael was featured as principal violist and soloist in the world premiere performance and recording of Benedict Sheehan’s Akathist (Bright Shiny Things). He has also performed with TAK Ensemble, Ensemble Ipse, Contemporaneous, and given the world premieres of works by Gunther Schuler, Solange Knowles, Richard Danielpour, Claude Baker, Luna Pearl Woolf, Derek Bermel, and Daniel Bjarnasson among others.

Michael was a founding member of the conductorless string orchestra Shattered Glass, where he collaborated in world premiere recordings of works by Caroline Shaw, Tarik O’Regan, and Pascal LeBoeuf, was featured as Guest Artist at Kneisel Hall Chamber Music Festival and performed at Carnegie Hall in Stern Auditorium and Zankel Hall, The New School for Music, Princeton Sound Kitchen at Princeton University, Interlochen School of the Arts, and the SphinxConnect Artist Showcase.

A former Tanglewood Music Center Fellow and an alumnus of the Pacific Music Festival, Michael completed his graduate studies with Karen Dreyfus and Irene Breslaw in the Manhattan School of Music Orchestral Performance Program where he was a recipient of the Charles Grossman Memorial Endowment Scholarship, and was an undergraduate student of Michael Klotz and the Amernet String Quartet at the Florida International University Wertheim School of Music in Miami, FL.